In this episode, host Lorie Jones sits down with Paige Wiese, founder and CEO of Tree Ring Digital, to explore the power of resilience and the courage it takes to forge your own path.
Paige shares her unconventional journey from aspiring architect to entrepreneur, detailing how unexpected health challenges pushed her to reinvent her career and build a thriving digital agency. The conversation highlights lessons on trusting yourself, embracing risk, and the importance of setting up solid processes from the start. Paige also opens up about navigating professional advocacy with her young age and gender identity as a business owner, and discusses the wisdom she has gained from challenges and setbacks.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking for motivation to continue your entrepreneurial journey, this episode offers powerful insights and advice for any woman daring to dream big and succeed fearlessly.
Show Highlights:
- Signals of entrepreneurialism in boredom, doodling, and job struggles. [05:05]
- Are agencies moving to hybrid or fully remote work models? [08:00]
- Making health a foundational priority, epilepsy, and wellbeing. [12:01]
- Adventurous living, with limitations as a catalyst and wake-up call. [15:58]
- Should you niche down or diversify your service offering? [17:33]
- The downstream benefits of slowing down and documentation. [21:57]
- Why before-40 self-advocacy and financial planning matters. [26:27]
- The power of embracing mistakes with ease and transparency. [28:37]
- Proving expertise over gender identity in business ownership. [32:51]
- Career rollercoaster and seasonality advice for young women. [37:30]
DM Paige Wiese on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigewiese/ if you have any questions.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review!
For more information about Lorie Jones, go to https://fearlessfinancialadvisors.com/fearless-females.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review!
For more information about Lorie Jones, go to https://fearlessfinancialadvisors.com/fearless-females.
00:01.33
loriejones7
Good morning, fearless females. So today we have Paige Weiss. She is the founder and CEO of Tree Ring Digital. And I’m so excited to be talking to you today, Paige. I i loved hearing your story. We talked just a little bit a few weeks ago, and I’m really excited for my listeners to kind of hear about your journey. So thank you for doing this.
00:21.96
Paige Wiese
Yeah, no, thank you for having me. I’m excited for it.
00:25.27
loriejones7
So my first question is always my favorite. What is your favorite book?
00:29.87
Paige Wiese
This is always a hard one for me. While your favorite, I am not a big reader, actually. I don’t know the last time I probably actually read a novel. It’s just not for me, I’ve learned.
00:40.85
Paige Wiese
ah But I would say, you know, over the years, I’ve definitely done much more of like the self-helps and but business books on audio. And one that I’ve really taken a liking to is um the the boundaries book by Nidra. I’m going to forget her last name.
00:57.65
Paige Wiese
ah But there’s a book on boundaries that really just like goes through family and work and business and all sorts of stuff, relationships. And that one definitely like makes you start to realize kind of where is business owners or type A personalities that we’re over exhausting ourselves and saying yes too often. So definitely a good one.
01:17.60
Paige Wiese
Nidra Dixon.
01:17.69
loriejones7
I could.
01:18.02
Paige Wiese
I think it needs your Nidra Dixon.
01:20.71
loriejones7
ah Yeah, I could definitely use that book. So I’m going to put it on my list because um I don’t have very good boundaries most of the time.
01:28.05
Paige Wiese
okay
01:28.61
loriejones7
like so hopefully she could teach me. So tell me little bit about yourself, Paige. Talk to me about your journey. How did you get started? um What are you doing now?
01:39.44
loriejones7
um Just tell me a little bit about you.
01:41.76
Paige Wiese
Yeah, so I know when we were talking, you know, my story goes back quite a bit as far as, you know, typically I tell people more just architecture is where I started. And, you know, I was doing that coming out of school. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just know I enjoyed drawing. That’s all I did during class. I was always in trouble for drawing in class. So when I started looking at, you know, what do i want to do for a career? I was like, I guess, draw lines on paper and, you know, on the computer.
02:07.45
Paige Wiese
And so I went into architecture and after a few years of that, I’d already been laid off twice before 23 and just had no idea then what direction to go. I always enjoyed working. Honestly, even as a kid, I never felt like work was work.
02:20.97
Paige Wiese
And so, you know, I just like, what’s wrong with me that I can’t hold the job down, you know? not realizing at that time and that age, what 2008 meant for a lot of people, for a lot of jobs and just architecture house homes in general.
02:35.72
Paige Wiese
And so, you know i was just like, now what do I do? And at the same time, i was starting to have more grand mal seizures. so And at that time was diagnosed with epilepsy and had no idea what that meant moving forward.
02:49.17
Paige Wiese
All I knew is that they kept taking my driver’s license away at a time when
02:52.09
loriejones7
Mm-hmm.
02:53.76
Paige Wiese
Thought I was getting independence and freedom, thought that i you know should be having a career and getting everything established. And really in reality, everything felt like it was being taken away from me. And so that’s when I was just like, what do I do? Where do I go for you know finding money? How do I survive? How do I live? How do i take care of myself? And and just, you know what can I do from home since I can’t necessarily drive to an office or a job site anymore? And so i just started teaching myself web design and just Hey, let’s see what I can do with this. What does it mean? What does it look like? And thankfully, a lot of things were actually super transferable. As far as user experience, you’re already learning a lot about that in architecture as far as how to people navigate through a house and what that looks like for being able to move in space and
03:40.62
Paige Wiese
you know, making sure there is enough space in certain situations or quietness in different spots. And so I think there’s a lot of that that really started to come to me a little bit more naturally. And as a kid, all I really wanted to do was like be on a computer. i was just like, how can I look at 10,000 fonts? How can i you know, see what all this looks like. So thankfully, I think a bit of that also then transferred into the design side of it all. So that’s how i got started into an agency, actually, it was just more out of a need. And, you know, really, how can I make this lifestyle work for me, instead of trying so hard to fit, you know, into this little box, if you will.
04:17.75
loriejones7
who So and you were an architect. Do you think that if if it we it had been different and it had been, say, 2021, that you could have continued being an architect um you know from home? Because that was one of the major problems, wasn’t it?
04:35.93
Paige Wiese
Yeah, no, actually, that’s a great point is absolutely I think so. I, you know, the company I was with at the time was making some cutbacks. So, you know, i do think there was a piece of it. But when you start looking at, you know, who do we let go, who is bringing value, obviously not being able to drive to a job site or pick up files from the assessor’s office and stuff does start to, you know, make an impact on if you can perform the daily tasks.
04:58.10
Paige Wiese
So knowing now so much of it is online and remote definitely makes a difference. And, you know, at the time, it really wasn’t a thing to work from home. in two thousand And in 2008, it was me just trying to figure out how do I make this work? How can I have phone calls with clients? Zoom wasn’t a thing. We weren’t really hopping on Skype for phone, you know, video calls.
05:19.54
Paige Wiese
So it was also just a lot of trust from clients of like, okay, your email sounded fine. Let’s go. um But, you know, so then you start getting through that digital nomad era of,
05:30.77
Paige Wiese
where everyone started to go. And this is even, I’m you know going to say a little pre COVID and leading into COVID, but you know i was just like, I’ve been doing this for a while. Like, you know we were hybrid at the time, but still very remote. And so it really actually made it a smoother transition. And I’ve been very fortunate with the company that we were already set up in a pretty hybrid model and now we are full remote and, you know, all seamless transitions just because out of something at the time that was such a necessity for me actually led to a great, you know lifestyle long term.
06:04.74
loriejones7
So um are you happy that you made that jump and that change to to the tree ring? Is like digital your calling, i guess, is what I’m getting at? Or would you like it’s just it’s two wildly different um careers.
06:20.41
Paige Wiese
They are different and they’re not. Both ways you’re watching things be built. One’s just hammering nails and one’s with coding and computers, right? So they they are different to some extent and watching something that you are envisioning come to life is very much the same thing in both areas. So, you know, as I look back though, I do think that the transition was good. I always say, I’m so happy I found my calling so early on in life.
06:45.88
loriejones7
Mm-hmm.
06:45.92
Paige Wiese
ah Watching today’s economy and just the way that we are designing, especially here in Denver, it’s so many apartment complexes. And I knew from the get, I didn’t want to get into like that type of architecture. A rinse and repeat model is not for me.
07:02.79
Paige Wiese
It was a little bit of it. My first um design company, what I wasn’t really liking is I felt like we could only work in so many ways. Like we had to have certain rooms in the same spot. And i was like,
07:14.99
Paige Wiese
this is getting boring. Like I, okay, same thing. Here we go. Next house out the door. And i think with an agency and with Turing Digital, like I love that we are working with so many different industries and so many different clients. And it honestly just led me into also just realizing how much I loved business. I didn’t go to business school, but i love learning different business models. I love learning different leadership styles, different ways that people are making money. And you know, what it looks like, what it means. And that i i definitely found my calling there of business is definitely my passion, whether it’s business development, whether it’s helping clients, whatever that looks like. So i think it was actually a really good transition and I’m really, really happy I did it. And and so really on too.
08:01.87
loriejones7
Yeah, that it it is nice. It is nice when you finally when you find your calling earlier rather than later, you can put your whole heart into it. And um and you’ve got a lot of energy too still when you when you learn early on, right?
08:10.48
Paige Wiese
Mm-hmm.
08:16.65
Paige Wiese
Yeah, I Yeah. many come you know are coming out of corporate or a different lifestyle, a little burnt out, whatever, later in life. And yeah, just the fact that I’ve been able to do this for so long and and really take that as an opportunity to learn has been very good.
08:32.44
loriejones7
Paige, what is the best investment that you’ve made in yourself? Is there something that you can kind of look back on and and be like, oh, I’m so glad I did that. I just i just wouldn’t be where I’m at today.
08:43.46
Paige Wiese
I think best investment in myself would be my health. You know, I really listened to my body and what was needing to kind of work through the seizures or advocating for myself through that time. And like, hey, this isn’t working. Something else has to be an option. You know, what else can we do? And I’ve had to do that throughout so many different parts of my life of just really, no, that’s not the answer.
09:06.53
Paige Wiese
We’re going to keep looking for an answer or listening to my body and saying, it’s not getting what it needs. I need to do something different. Is it like getting to different weather and temperature? Is it eating a little bit different? Is it, you know, like, Hey, let me just focus and just get all of these things out of my mind so that it’s no longer, you know, creating the chaos in my head and I can get back to enjoying, like, there’s so many different ways. So I would say the big, the best investment has been back into myself, but from a health perspective and working out whatever that looks like.
09:38.26
loriejones7
That’s so interesting. So did these, and the seizures, that wasn’t something that you had grown up having, it was something that came on kind of suddenly, and you were learning to deal with it.
09:49.61
Paige Wiese
Yeah, it’s a good question. At the time, i don’t think they really knew. i would probably say looking back, yes, you know, it has been kind of diagnosed of like small petite seizures growing up and it was once a month or so. And no one really, you know, knew what it was, especially I think as a kid, it’s a little harder to pull the right information out of, of like, what are you experiencing? And me on the other side, like, I don’t know, this is just what I’m feeling, you know, and like,
10:16.12
Paige Wiese
being able to put the two together. Once I so i had my first grand mall, um I think I was about 19. I don’t think I was quite 20 yet. And so, you know, it’s definitely eye opening experience of like, Whoa, what just happened? What’s going on? And you know, where did this come from? And that’s when they started looking a little bit deeper into it. But then yeah, they’re pretty consistent about every six months to the day for the next several years.
10:39.96
loriejones7
That must have been a little bit scary too, because like you said, you you’re you’re dealing with a whole new health situation at the same time you’re trying to deal with. This changes my entire trajectory. Like the things that I thought were going to happen in the way I thought they were going to happen. You go to college, you get a job, you work for 25 years, you retire, you know, 40 years, whatever you retire and and life goes on. But thats it’s ah it was a whole new wrench into life.
11:07.96
loriejones7
your life
11:09.43
Paige Wiese
Yeah, and I think it also like led me to take more risks, you know, at one just doing freelance and starting off with that. No, not the way that I was raised, not something that I would normally have probably taken a risk on. But didn’t really have many other choices or options at that time specifically.
11:26.56
Paige Wiese
And two, you know, as you’re having grand mal seizures, one of the first things they say is like, stop everything. Like everything you’re doing is a risk, you know, like taking a bath in a shower is a risk.
11:36.51
loriejones7
Oh my gosh.
11:38.76
Paige Wiese
Getting in a hot tub is a risk. Like you don’t know when you’re going to have one. And at the time i was training for a triathlon. And so it was like, I’m not just going to not get in the pool. So I started taking, you know, more precautions of like, let me tell the lifeguard like, Hey, I’m training. I have seizures.
11:57.38
Paige Wiese
I’ll be fine. Keep an eye on me though. You know, and same thing. I would go rock climbing and I know, you know, like probably not the most advised thing to do, but that was something that really gets me out of my head from work into, okay let me just focus on what’s here in front of me. Let me focus this challenge. Let me push my body. And now I’m much more into trail running and,
12:19.26
Paige Wiese
Yeah, like definitely things that you probably shouldn’t you know necessarily be doing, but it’s you know really learning. ah can’t have it stop my life. And how do i you know take the best risks that I can? And you know again, back to my body too, and be aware and be mindful of like, what is my body saying?
12:38.30
Paige Wiese
And is this the right thing you know to be doing or not? But I think it’s allowed me to live a bit more of an adventurous life than I maybe would have if I hadn’t had them happen.
12:48.22
loriejones7
Oh, that’s so that’s a really interesting way of looking at it, too. It’s like it brought actually more adventure rather than less into your life, more more risk as far as trying things and and taking chances.
13:02.03
loriejones7
um at and That’s that’s I would have expected it to be the opposite. I would have expected it to be less ah more restrictive.
13:09.34
Paige Wiese
i
13:10.10
loriejones7
And for you, it’s not.
13:10.52
Paige Wiese
Yeah, I think it wasn’t one of my first ones, but one of the seizures in the middle, i was, I don’t talk about it too much, but i was in a pretty bad car accident and walked away from it unscratched. Everyone did.
13:23.71
Paige Wiese
um And I think it was a huge wake up call for me of how short life is and you just have to enjoy it. And, you know, we don’t want to go through those experiences. And at the same time, I think it happened You know, early in life is just, I can’t take this so seriously and any day it could be. So you just have to live every day, your best in what you want to be doing. So I think, you know, that to put a little more context around where that risk came from, it wasn’t just like, let me go live as adventurously as I can.
13:52.40
Paige Wiese
But it was like, no, I i can’t let this stop because i probably, you know, that could have been a lot worse. And so we just have to live each day as we ah want to and enjoy it
14:04.23
loriejones7
Yeah, i love that. What about, um Paige, can you think of some bad advice? Like, did you ever get really bad advice? And did you take it Did you not take it
14:13.88
Paige Wiese
Oh, man. I mean, bad advice all the time throughout the years. You know i you just have to start weeding through what good advice is and bad advice is. And I’m trying to think right now. I’m sure I’ve had some bad advice along the way, typically, you know as it just relates to like don’t take that risk in business, you know, like don’t do that. It’s not the right path. Or sometimes it’s even just like, hey, niche into this thing. And that niching hasn’t really been one of the best ways for us in business to go. We’re doing it a tiny bit more, but more as a sector than this or as a size of business than necessarily an industry. But
14:52.36
Paige Wiese
I’d say, you know, the amount of people who have said like niche and that’s how you’ll become successful in business, um especially as we’re like working on a new service offering right now. It’s like, thankfully, we didn’t niche because the service offering is going to be what provides us, you know, that opportunity in the market that no one else is doing.
15:10.42
loriejones7
Mm hmm. And did you know it was bad advice when they were giving it to you? Or did you? and Did you just do? how How did you choose not to follow? Because I’ve heard that advice niche down, you know, get very clear. let’s let’s know what your client is. And for some people, it’s really good. So how did you know not to take it?
15:31.09
Paige Wiese
For sure. I mean, that’s a good point, too. There’s tons of businesses. There’s times I’m like, no, I want someone who’s niching in blank specifically. You know, you and I were talking about it when looking at financial planning, even like I want someone who niches into businesses.
15:45.37
Paige Wiese
And not just, I always say, you know, residential ah financial planning, because they’re very, very different. And so, yeah, you’re right. There are times it’s really helpful.
15:55.81
Paige Wiese
um For me, it’s just what sits. Am I asking the right questions to get to an answer that I feel very confident in to say, this is the direction we’re going to go. I feel… very good with the decision moving forward. And while it might be against the advice we’re getting, I feel good with it and just, you know, sitting with it. I don’t want to say entirely gut, but really it does come down from, you know, does my gut say, yes, this is a good or bad idea.
16:21.17
loriejones7
Yeah. And what I probably upheld by what you’ve learned and what you’ve experienced and what you’ve gone through too. Yeah.
16:29.05
Paige Wiese
Yeah. Every business is different. Right. And like we’re watching what has, hasn’t worked. We’re paying attention to various signals and, ah you know, economic changes and different things going on. And so you do have to be adapting and pivoting and what could be working at one point doesn’t necessarily work a little bit later. And, you know, we were seeing that now too, with advancements of AI and stuff of like some services that were really, really good solids for us over the years.
16:55.73
Paige Wiese
Yeah, we’re going to have to rethink how we do some of that, you know, so there are times that you have to look at what is the right direction to be going.
17:05.33
loriejones7
Yeah, and I love that you emphasize that too, because that’s a little bit being nimble or pivoting or watching your environment. it’s It’s a business skill and something that you have to do across the board, no matter what business you’re in.
17:18.50
loriejones7
You really do have to have that ability to adjust with the time or else you end up being like Kodak or something like that, right?
17:23.34
Paige Wiese
Yeah, absolutely. You watch all of these businesses that have been business for a long time, large businesses you know that are going under and you think that they never would. You grew up on them and then you’re like, whoa, okay. And yeah, I think something, I always laugh, SWOT analysis you know is ah someone who didn’t have a business background and all self-taught and took some you know business courses here and there through different programs. I remember the SWOT analysis and just being like,
17:54.05
Paige Wiese
It’s websites, it’s marketing, nothing’s going to change.
17:54.34
loriejones7
Thank you.
17:56.13
Paige Wiese
It’s, you know, yeah, we might change a little bit from obviously we’re not using yellow books. And now we’re going into this, but it’ll always be here. And now it’s like, whoa, no, there’s a lot coming in taking over. And they always said that of like, but it’s the it’s the things you’re not really looking forward to or seeing or anticipating that’s going to come in. And you know, the how quickly things change right now, you don’t. I think it’s the same with these big businesses of, well, we weren’t expecting, you know, this tech giant to come in and just completely change the way that people shop or, you know, buy the whatever that looks like.
18:32.79
loriejones7
Yeah. What about situation as you kind of look back over your journey page? Is there a situation that you’re like, oh, my gosh, I wish I could go back and do that differently? Like, I’ve learned so much.
18:44.98
loriejones7
I’ve got all this knowledge. I’m going to take it back and redo that situation.
18:50.14
Paige Wiese
Um, i I mean, two things I would say one thing that i wish I could go back and redo would be just more documentation and processes from the get, you know, slowing down from, which is so funny to say that because I always feel like I’ve taken a longer journey than others. I didn’t just jump in right away, right? I it it’s been a while to get here at 16 years, but you know, I just, I wish I had done a better job documenting things along the way and just having more clear laid out processes and really focusing on like the business infrastructure than just like going with the seat of my pants and just, all right, that’s working.
19:25.70
loriejones7
right.
19:26.79
Paige Wiese
Let’s go. oh we’re growing. Like we need to keep moving. Oh, we’re like, we were just growing so quickly. And then it was just like, we didn’t have that solid, solid foundation that we needed to keep pushing.
19:39.05
Paige Wiese
And so we had, I had to make that decision of like, we’re going to pump the brakes, we’re going to slow down. And while, you know, financially for a little bit, it may hurt, and we may feel it.
19:49.93
Paige Wiese
But I think it’s going to really, you know, yield in the long run to be what we need to do. And I do think that it’s helped a lot. It’s helped us with onboarding, it’s helped us with standards of practice and whatnot. So, you know, that would be definitely one.
20:02.97
Paige Wiese
i had another one. I already lost that train of thought there.
20:06.44
loriejones7
Well, you were speaking my love language with the one the processes and getting things in neat, orderly rows. I say that my superpower is making a ah chaos turn into ah very structured and neat, orderly, um you know, ways of looking at things. And so the idea of of I don’t think that processes get enough of the shiny attention and the sparkly light. So I love that you mentioned that
20:34.18
Paige Wiese
Well, it’s in my head or i you know, I talked to a lot of business owners at different stages of their business now. And it’s just like, no, stop, slow down. Like put these things into place if you don’t have them. And it could be anything from, you know, your hiring process you know we were just seeing so much of that especially through covid uh because of growth and also just changes and everything and yeah it was like this is taking way too long we don’t have the bandwidth to go through all of these resumes and this and that or you know how do we choose and so slow down streamline that process and now i mean we can put anybody into a seat. And as far as the hiring process, we aren’t going to just put anybody into the seat of who we hire, but you know, we could say, Hey, we need to have so-and-so step in and do the first round of interviews or at least review resumes. And so it really is back to the nimble, right? It’s allowed our team and the company to be able to adapt a little bit more for like
21:34.77
Paige Wiese
hey, we’ve got overhead here, but we’re a little light here. Don’t worry, we can you know have that move just a little bit if we need to to keep things moving along. So um yeah, just having them in place. I do try really hard with businesses getting started or you know kind of in that growth phase to say, either let’s slow down or let’s automate.
21:54.33
Paige Wiese
Are there places that we could be using tools more efficiently from a digital side to make these better for you instead of trying so hard to stick to your Excel spreadsheet that you’ve been using for so many years?
21:54.49
loriejones7
ah hope
22:05.53
loriejones7
ah Yeah. And then that helps too on the other end, because then you don’t get as much burnout and depletion because they’re thinking through doing things smarter, not harder and, and having a little bit
22:17.47
Paige Wiese
Right.
22:19.93
loriejones7
a better experience in the end. So I love that. You’re not only advocating or not only, you know, seeing that that would have made a difference, but you learned from that and went back and you’re helping other people do what you wish you could have gone back and done for yourself.
22:34.57
loriejones7
That’s great.
22:35.55
Paige Wiese
It’s hard. You know, like they’re like, no, no, no, we’ll get to it later. Right. You know, it’ll come back around and we’ll do it. And so there’s never, you’re never going to have the time to go back and do it as much as you think you will as a business owner or even just a leader in a company, you know, like it’s going to keep going and you’re really rarely going to find that slow time in whatever industry you’re in. And so It really is just slow down and do it now and it will save you the long run. And it it’s painful and it doesn’t you know, it seems like it’s such a time consuming task.
23:09.64
Paige Wiese
But when you start to see it fall into place, you really start to live by it and go, no. All right. We’re going to keep doing that moving forward.
23:16.13
loriejones7
and So if you could go back and high five yourself for one great financial decision along your journey, what would that be?
23:27.27
Paige Wiese
One great financial decision. i mean, for me, it was starting young and advocating for myself. I just, I knew being freelance to having health issues, you know, along the way, and then just who’s going to take care of me at the end, right? What does that look like? I knew it wasn’t a company. I knew it was my company.
23:47.27
Paige Wiese
And I don’t know why so early on, I knew that it was so important, but I, you know, back to risk, I knew, I’ve got a long span ahead of me, ideally.
23:58.64
Paige Wiese
um So let’s you know take the risk. and But let’s start now instead of trying to do it when I’m 40. you know forty And how do we go? And so that was probably, I would say, financially. But then like we talked about too, really, really focusing on I am young at the at the time that I started, like, I want this money to still be liquid. I want to be able to touch it. So when I am in a spot that I want to buy a business or invest in and whatever that looks like, I’m not like, oh, darn, I put all my money into ah you know, retirement plan that I can’t touch till I’m 62, because I knew I still had so much time ahead of me. And so and I knew what my business goals were, which was to be able to have that fun to do whatever I wanted.
24:46.30
Paige Wiese
from an investment side so I can make other financial decisions. So that’s what I would say is I’m really proud of myself for at least getting it kicked off at a much earlier age.
24:55.62
loriejones7
Yeah. And future you probably goes back and and thanks past you for that decision because…
25:01.14
Paige Wiese
i’m I’m hoping.
25:02.54
loriejones7
and ah Yeah, because that you have to work a lot less hard when you’ve got interest doubling and quadrupling and compounding, you know, as you get on in the in the business. So I love that. That’s really good advice.
25:16.29
loriejones7
What scared you the most when you started out? um Was anything? And does it still scare you? Did you learn how to deal with Tell me about
25:25.97
Paige Wiese
Um, scared me. i had nothing to lose. You know, i was definitely in a spot that that it really, i mean, yes, it could have gotten worse. Right. But like, from a job site, it really couldn’t have gotten much worse. I knew that I just had to find a way to make it work. So i didn’t have a lot of fear. i for some reason too, had a lot of faith in myself that i I would figure it out and make it work. I don’t know where that came from.
25:49.60
Paige Wiese
um And then, you know, ongoing fear, it was just, it felt like when I was getting started that everything was me just like free falling from a cliff. Anytime any little thing went wrong and really learning over the years, like,
26:05.01
Paige Wiese
no, now I feel like I’m just kind of tripping on ah a crack on the sidewalk, you know, like, okay, I stumbled a little and it wasn’t great, but we’re still going. And so I think that for me is something that was a lot scarier when I got started and now feels much more calm and much more manageable when the little things come up. And I try to work that in with my team as well of like, they haven’t gone through it.
26:27.61
Paige Wiese
So it’s going to feel really, really scary for them when they, you know, make a small mistake or a mistake, whatever happens. And so it’s like, no, like, let’s be transparent. Let’s have that conversation because I know what that feels like. And I don’t want them going through that or staying up at night trying to like, how do I fix this? Like, no, no. no I finally have that calmness to go. We can fix it.
26:50.03
Paige Wiese
Let’s just talk about it. So yeah, definitely feeling more like a small little trip than falling off a cliff.
26:51.50
loriejones7
Yeah. yeah It’s so interesting. I was working with someone and he did trading for one of the big banks. And he said um he learned early on that like you cannot be perfect. like There are going to be errors. You’re going to have trade errors. And he’s like, the best thing I learned was to raise my hand and be like, I messed up. I messed up. you know He’s like, I stand up. Yeah.
27:16.39
loriejones7
I made an error. I need to, we we need to fix this because bringing it to attention so that it can get fixed is so much easier than like you said, stewing about it and worrying about it. And, and, and you learn and you move on and you make less errors. What is it?
27:31.69
loriejones7
Fail, try again, fail better. Right?
27:34.14
Paige Wiese
Right. Yeah. I mean, i mean, that’s where people are like, how do you know how to touch so many different platforms and this and that? And I’m just like, Trial and error. i’ve gone I’ve done it. I’ve screwed up, you know, and we learned that’s not how you do that. So, you know, luckily now I can look back and laugh at it. But, you know, yeah, it was a lot of let’s figure it out. How do we do this and, you know, what’s going to work? But yeah, it also came with errors along the way. And the best thing you can do is just own up to it and say that happened.
28:02.29
Paige Wiese
How do we you know fix it? I think too, when a client’s coming in, it’s going be, again, any industry service. It can be you know products, shipping times, whatever. When you can stay ahead of it and you’re aware and you take the ownership, the client isn’t coming in so heated.
28:18.58
Paige Wiese
Where if you do wait and they’re the ones making the call, it is so much harder to calm them down. And so it really, the more you can take that ownership up front and just say, hey, this happened.
28:30.57
loriejones7
Yeah.
28:30.85
Paige Wiese
Here’s what we’re doing to fix it, whatever. It’s such an easier conversation than trying to cool down someone who’s already extremely frustrated that it wasn’t brought to their attention sooner.
28:40.98
loriejones7
um Yeah. I love that. And providing an environment that you and your staff can do that in is is pretty special, I think. Like where you where they feel comfortable saying, hey, I made a mistake.
28:53.16
loriejones7
i I’m so sorry, but you know help me fix it so I don’t do it again.
28:58.06
Paige Wiese
I think it’s lead by example. I’ll be the first person to say, I think one of the worst mistakes we had was on me, you know, and I just said like, whoa, okay. Like, and it was me still trying to be way too involved in the company and really having my hands and making decisions when I didn’t actually have the full concept of.
29:17.27
Paige Wiese
where the project was at. And so it was also a wake up call for me of like, the team actually has this handled, I didn’t need to step in. And me stepping in actually screwed up, instead of being helpful.
29:29.47
Paige Wiese
And so even there was like, a okay, this is a lesson I need to learn. And I need to work with the team to figure out what is the solution. And that’s really, you know, where i say creating that comfortable space is really helping them. But ah Yeah, it’s just how do you lead by that example and show them what that looks like and i think it really creates a much better work environment.
29:53.71
loriejones7
Paige, what scared, or sorry, did you face any unique challenges because you were a woman through your journey?
30:02.87
Paige Wiese
really want to say so much because I was a woman through my journey. i think, you know, sometimes age was a thing when I would first get started. I didn’t have enough years in the industry compared to a lot of others at the time.
30:11.72
loriejones7
Mm-hmm.
30:15.97
Paige Wiese
So I do know that age was definitely one. And then I would say probably more so on the LGBT side and being a lesbian owned business was probably more where I saw it than necessarily because I was a woman.
30:31.40
Paige Wiese
And so that piece, ah you know, where it’s like, let’s not talk about that at work.
30:31.51
loriejones7
Mm-hmm.
30:36.35
Paige Wiese
Let’s not talk about that in situations. Let me show up to networking events and just not talk about a personal life whatsoever so that we don’t have to have questions or have people make a decision on if they wanted to hire us because of that or if they wanted to hire us on skillset.
30:51.52
Paige Wiese
um You know, so that’s probably where I’ve seen it ah hold back a little bit more over the years than necessarily like a gender side.
30:58.29
loriejones7
Mm-hmm. Probably has gotten a little bit better over the years on that side as well, just from ninety s to, what, 2020s, hopefully. Yeah.
31:09.84
Paige Wiese
Yeah, it’s definitely, you know, gotten gotten better. And at the same time, unfortunately, you know, like it’s getting worse. It’s it’s really interesting how much like I didn’t talk about it starting. And some of it was like I said, just just focus on what I know and what I’m good at instead of why and who I am.
31:29.01
Paige Wiese
But, you know, then I was like, all right, we’re going to advocate a lot more. We’re going to be more present and vocal. And then with everything going on now, it’s like, no, we need to like reign that back in We need to, you know, still be present and supportive, but really is starting to become more of a topic of conversation again. And, you know, people deciding who they want to do business with around certain things like that. And so, you know, while still want people to hire us for expertise and for who I am, it definitely starts to be like, hey, how do we start to separate these two things instead of have them so mingled together?
32:03.93
loriejones7
Yeah, that is a unique challenge right now, for sure.
32:07.54
Paige Wiese
hmm. And it’s like, I don’t think i notice it as much as so many others. And i that’s like ah a little bit harder piece too, is that it definitely, um you know, isn’t one that impacts every single thing. I think as we work with different clients now, we start to see like, maybe this is happening more than we necessarily know. And we’re like looking at contracts and who’s winning these and what’s going on or who’s in the room at certain situations. And for me, it’s really more about just keep showing up and, you know, show them what we know and show them why they should be working with us. And, you know, they don’t talk about it then they don’t bring it up. They don’t really care. It’s just, you know, business is business. You have to get in front of them with what they’re interested in.
32:49.52
Paige Wiese
And when you can fix and solve that, they really don’t care about the rest after that.
32:54.08
loriejones7
Yeah. Yeah.
32:57.08
loriejones7
Paige, what is the thing you are most proud of?
33:01.14
Paige Wiese
Most proud of, i would say, is where I’m at today. i would say just what I’ve created from the company, ah starting off with some Craigslist ads free because I didn’t have a budget and doing everything I could to you know grow into an agency. i didn’t have colleagues or even like student friends that you know that i was like, oh, let me go talk to them. What are they doing? I didn’t bring a bunch of clients from corporate with me because I didn’t have that experience. And so To go from, and I didn’t have anybody in the and Denver. you know I didn’t have a local network either. So to see what I’ve been able to grow and accomplish and going from freelance to a team of 15, that piece is what I’m most proud of and what we’re able to put out the door and how we’re able to deliver the results and help our clients out in whatever capacity that looks like for them.
33:55.02
loriejones7
That is that is a big accomplishment too. and And you know speaking as someone who has grown a business, that’s hard.
34:03.96
Paige Wiese
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s harder than people think, you know, and yeah, people are like, oh, i want to start a business. And yeah there’s a lot that’s going to go into it. There’s going to be a lot of blood, sweat and tears. There’s going to be a lot of sleepless nights and long nights, but i wouldn’t change anything by any means. I absolutely love what I’m doing and what I’ve created, but it definitely hasn’t been without sacrifices. That’s for sure.
34:28.23
loriejones7
Yeah, yeah. We may take the road again, but we can acknowledge that it was a rough road some days.
34:34.25
Paige Wiese
Absolutely. That’s a good way to put it for sure.
34:37.99
loriejones7
Any advice for a young lady who’s just starting down this path um that you’re so successful at? Anything that you can tell her or help her out with? What advice would you give her?
34:49.33
Paige Wiese
Trust yourself and buckle up. It’s a ride. It’s a roller coaster for sure. You’re going to have good days. You’re going to have bad days. um But if it’s what you’re passionate about, you can do it. You will enjoy it I think, you know, that’s really what I try to tell a lot of people is if you have the passion behind it and you believe in yourself, you can absolutely have a successful business.
35:10.15
Paige Wiese
It’s just it, you know, it is a roller coaster, though, and you got to work through that.
35:14.41
loriejones7
any um Any advice on getting through the valleys in the roller coaster ride?
35:19.21
Paige Wiese
Yeah, you know, like it’ll always get better right now. it and I say right now is in wherever you’re at in that journey, right? Like it is so hard to get yourself out of that negativity and it is so hard to be like, yes, it will get better or there is light at the end of this tunnel and I just have to keep pushing or having faith of like,
35:39.40
Paige Wiese
oh, if I keep grinding, it’ll pay off. But it always does. That’s something I have always seen is no matter what part I’m going through, no matter what the challenge is, and now it’s a lot easier at the time, like getting started. No, it was really hard to keep pushing through some of those. There were days I wanted to quit. There were days I was like, why did I start my own business?
36:00.27
Paige Wiese
I just go work for a company. What am I doing here? And, you know, yeah, as I keep looking back, I’m like, I’m so glad I didn’t. it But I know during those times, that’s all I wanted to do.
36:11.02
Paige Wiese
I didn’t know why I would stay in it. And, you know, then yeah, something kind of clicks, something kind of changes, and you just keep pushing. Now, it’s a lot easier for me to see. And so I try really hard to encourage others that are going through it of like, hang in there, what can we do? Like, what’s a little thing we can shift to change that energy, and or kind of reignite, you know, that flame, and then it’ll come around. But you know, it it is going to be filled with ups and downs. so Things that you weren’t expecting, you know, all of a sudden you’re just like, oh, okay, I thought things are going so smooth and then you just get hit with something. And so really too, how do you handle those and prepare yourself?
36:47.32
loriejones7
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I’ve, And I hope that you probably have a chance to tell some of your businesses that as you help them grow on the web design and and marketing space, they are also growing as a business and you can lend some of that experience.
37:04.72
loriejones7
Hang in there. Keep going.
37:07.21
Paige Wiese
Yeah, comes up. Like, you know, seasonalities is one of them with marketing or economy and what’s going on with different things. We’ll see. And thankfully, we can see it from a lot of our clients.
37:19.37
Paige Wiese
where business owner is seeing their marketing report or they’re seeing their leads and conversion.
37:19.49
loriejones7
Yeah.
37:25.18
Paige Wiese
We’re able to see, and it’s the same with you with finances, right? Where you’re just kind of like, you only see yours, so you don’t know if you’re doing well, doing bad, if it’s going in the right direction, whatever. But when you get to see everybody’s that are happening, then you can start to see a trend and be able to tell them like, I know the phone slowed down.
37:44.17
Paige Wiese
Do you understand we just started summer vacation? Everyone is out. People are gone. They’re going to come back. Right. I was laughing today, even with the holiday. It was like, no one wants to pay a bill towards the end of a month.
37:55.98
Paige Wiese
And then today it’s just like pay, pay, pay, pay. pay pay pay
37:58.44
loriejones7
Hehe.
37:58.58
Paige Wiese
And no, like, so you just have to even write out some of those seasonalities. And we, we try to say like. This event is happening and that is impacting or just people aren’t searching as much because they’re hanging a little bit tighter onto their money.
38:11.67
Paige Wiese
And then other times they’re just letting it fly out the door. And so it is a lot easier for us to kind of calm a client down and like stick to the plan. Keep similar to your stock markets, right? Stick to the plan. It’s going to be up and down.
38:25.71
Paige Wiese
We will get there. However, it’s going to be a minute, you know, but trust us. That’s what you hired us for.
38:32.12
loriejones7
Yeah. So um if I have a young lady who wanted to reach out and just ask you a question or get some more information, how does she do that, Paige?
38:42.35
Paige Wiese
I would say LinkedIn is the best way to do that. Find me on LinkedIn, send me a direct message. I’m a bit more in that and really like more laser tuned to relationships and everything that’s going on in that space.
38:53.51
Paige Wiese
And then it allows just kind of to be able to see, you know, what’s going on and the long-term success for them as well, compared to just that like blind email transaction back and forth of just like, oh, you sent me a question and then not really knowing where they’re at down the road.
39:05.99
loriejones7
you
39:07.21
Paige Wiese
Right. So I do think, you know, relationship building is really, really important for, not just myself, but for the company. So I’d say LinkedIn is a good place to do that. true ah LinkedIn.com slash page.
39:18.69
loriejones7
Perfect. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for just sharing your journey and being so open about your past and and the and the you know your health concerns and things like that. I’ve just really appreciated getting to know you, Paige. Thank you.
39:32.09
Paige Wiese
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on and letting me share.